A Very Stable Genius, Philip Rucker
A Very Stable Genius, Philip Rucker
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A Very Stable Genius
Donald J. Trump's Testing of America

Bestseller

Author: Philip Rucker, Carol Leonnig

Narrator: Hillary Huber, Carol Leonnig, Philip Rucker

Unabridged: 18 hr 26 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 01/21/2020

Synopsis

The instant #1 bestseller.

“This taut and terrifying book is among the most closely observed accounts of Donald J. Trump’s shambolic tenure in office to date."
- Dwight Garner, The New York Times

Washington Post national investigative reporter Carol Leonnig and White House bureau chief Philip Rucker, both Pulitzer Prize winners, provide the definitive insider narrative of Donald Trump’s presidency
 
“I alone can fix it.” So proclaimed Donald J. Trump on July 21, 2016, accepting the Republican presidential nomination and promising to restore what he described as a fallen nation. Yet as he undertook the actual work of the commander in chief, it became nearly impossible to see beyond the daily chaos of scandal, investigation, and constant bluster. In fact, there were patterns to his behavior and that of his associates. The universal value of the Trump administration was loyalty—not to the country, but to the president himself—and Trump’s North Star was always the perpetuation of his own power. 

With deep and unmatched sources throughout Washington, D.C., Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker reveal the forty-fifth president up close. Here, for the first time, certain officials who felt honor-bound not to divulge what they witnessed in positions of trust tell the truth for the benefit of history.

A peerless and gripping narrative, A Very Stable Genius not only reveals President Trump at his most unvarnished but shows how he tested the strength of America’s democracy and its common heart as a nation.

About The Author

Philip Rucker is the senior Washington correspondent at The Washington Post and led its coverage of President Trump and his administration as White House Bureau chief. He and a team of Post reporters won the Pulitzer Prize and George Polk Award for their reporting on Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. In 2021, the White House Correspondents’ Association honored Rucker with the Aldo Beckman Award for overall excellence in White House coverage. Rucker joined the Post in 2005 and previously has covered Congress, the Obama White House, and the 2012 and 2016 presidential campaigns. He serves as an on-air political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC and graduated from Yale University with a degree in history. He is also the co-author of I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year. Carol Leonnig is a national investigative reporter at The Washington Post, where she has worked since 2000, covering Donald Trump’s presidency and previous administrations. She won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on security failures and misconduct inside the Secret Service. She also was part of the Post teams awarded Pulitzers in 2018, for reporting on Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, and in 2014, for revealing the U.S. government’s secret, broad surveillance of Americans. Leonnig is an on-air contributor to NBC News and MSNBC, author of Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service, and co-author of I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year.  

Reviews

Goodreads review by Gregg on May 23, 2020

For me, the past three years or so, during Donald Trump’s so-called leadership, have been hellish, but also hellishly blurry. I recall reading somewhere White House strategist Steve Bannon remarking that his war against the media (his term) was to “flood the gates with bullshit” so that the real age......more

Goodreads review by Elizabeth on February 17, 2020

This book chronicles Donald Trump's pathway to the Presidency, from the moment he rode down the escalator to announce his candidacy to the revelation of the phone call he made to the president of the Ukraine. It is co-written by two NY Times reporters who are winners of multiple Pulitzer Prizes for......more

Goodreads review by Jill on January 20, 2020

The latest Donald Trump expose published today is “A Very Stable Genius”, by Washington Post reporters Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig. They’re part of a political reporting team at the Post that has won a Pulitzer Prize and Leonnig has won two Pulitzer prizes on her own. Both appear frequently on M......more

Goodreads review by Bill on May 16, 2020

This best-seller—which documents how the Trump presidency gradually lost its guard rails—somehow failed to sell itself with me. Sure, I’d recommend it to anybody who’s been in a coma for the last three years, but not to any one like me, who keeps up with the news and has taken note of each fresh hor......more

Goodreads review by David on February 28, 2020

I hadn't intended to read this book. I'd already read 'Fire and Fury' and 'Fear' and had rather come to the conclusion that reading any book focused on the one I prefer referring to as 'The Thing' would be an exercise in reading about A Black Hole. ~ and how much can you learn when reading about a b......more

Quotes

“[Rucker and Leonnig] are meticulous journalists, and this taut and terrifying book is among the most closely observed accounts of Donald J. Trump’s shambolic tenure in office to date. . . . Their newspaper’s ominous, love-it-or-hate-it motto is ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness.’ A Very Stable Genius flicks the lights on from its first pages.”—Dwight Garner, New York Times

“Richly sourced and highly readable…It is not just another Trump tell-all or third-party confessional. It is unsettling, not salacious.”—Lloyd Green, The Guardian

“Imagine, for a moment, a high-octane courtroom prosecutor summing up for the jury a case built on the vivid testimony of multiple eye-witnesses…. You could scarcely ask for more capable advocates. Leonnig won a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on the U.S. Secret Service in 2015, then joined Rucker and others on a team awarded the Pulitzer for stories on Russian interference in the 2016 election.  Their new, collaborative account…walks readers step by step through the first 30 months or so of a presidency like no other. They leave little doubt that they and many of their sources regard that presidency as an unmitigated and deepening disaster — a threat to American government as we have known it.  Whatever may happen to that impeachment effort in the weeks and months ahead, it creates a moment of intermission in the Trump saga and a chance to consider how the landscape has already been altered by this president. A Very Stable Genius offers a harrowing companion narrative to be read during intermission.”—Ron Elving, NPR

"A Very Stable Genius is the most reliably detailed narrative yet of just how chaotic and paranoid this White House is."—Air Mail

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